onsdag 30. april 2014

In the Cantos of Mutabilitie, the only known excerpts from Edmund Spenser's seventh book of The Faerie Queene, there is a procession of all the months, in which each month is depicted in accordance with its typical attributes. In this blogpost, even though this is the very last day of the month, I present to you Spenser's depiction of April in this procession.

TaurusFrom MS. Arundel 60, English psalter from 3rd quarter of the 11th centuryCourtesy of British Library

Next came fresh Aprill full of lustyhed,And wanton as a Kid whose horne new buds:Vpon a Bull he rode, the same which ledEuropa floting through th' Argolick fluds:His hornes were gilden all with golden studsAnd garnished with garlonds goodly dightOf all the fairest flowres and freshest budsWhich th'earth brings forth, and wet he deem'd in sightWith waues, through which he waded for his loues delight.- Mutabilitie, Canto VII, 33

lørdag 26. april 2014

One of Norway's most famous and important writers was Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910). He is most known for his plays, his short novels and for penning the lyrics to the Norwegian national anthem, but he also composed a number of shorter poems. Bjørnson was a controversial figure in his own time because of his attacks on the establishment, siding with the weaker elements of society and relentless in his verbal attacks on those with whom he disagreed. His literary output was substantial and wide-ranging, and he was awarded with the Nobel Price for literature in 1903 as the third recipient in its history.

In this blogpost I present to you one of his shorter poems, April, which was first published in Dikte og Sange 1870, poems and songs, and an abbreviated version was printed in his collection Guldkorn, gold nuggets, in 1888. An image of the poem as it appears on the page of this latter collection can be seen below. I have translated the poem into English below, but with the purpose chiefly to retain the exuberant rhythm of the lines rather than keeping the rhyme-scheme or to present an elegant translation.

mandag 7. april 2014

In this orgy of rhetoric one almost
loses sight of another very important statement

- In the Presence of the Dead,
Karsten Friis-Jensen (2006)

As every historian learns
to know at some point, the conveying of historical fact and
historical narratives is fraught with numerous challenges and
difficult choices. To write about historical issues is therefore a
delicate matter, and to navigate and negotiate vast chronologies or
to assemble a bric-a-brac of historical material, require great care
and sobriety. It is therefore always frustrating and saddening to me
when an unprofessional decides to dabble in history and present it to
an audience, without the proper methodological schooling or
awareness. This blogpost is a response to a recent example of such
dabbling, a piece on the Vikings written by Irish journalist and
Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn, published in The
Independent. The piece in question was a response to the current
Viking exhibition at British Museum.

In my response, I do not
wish to be facetious, nor do I wish to be ungenerous, and I will
therefore state rightaway that I sympathise and agree with Cockburn's
major point, namely that the Vikings were a band of brutal warriors
who were responsible for great atrocities, and that in our times
there is a certain revisionism that tends to downplay this aspect of
the Viking culture. This basic point is true. Murder, rape,
enslavement and pillage were all part of the job description for a
Viking, and these are not to made a trifle of. The problem is that
Cockburn commits so many methodological fallacies and descends into
rhetoric and ahistoricity that this central point disappears in
comparisons that are obfuscating rather than clarifying, in a
rhetoric that is histrionic and in a presentation of history that is
grossly imprecise and simplistic.

Things
go awry from the very beginning, as the lead paragraph states that
"Norsemen
carried out atrocities to equal those of the German SS". This is
problematic on several levels, and if one of my students had written
this in an essay, I would have refused to let him pass and given him
a severe scolding for such anachronism. And this is the first issue,
namely the juxtaposition of two phenomena separated by almost a
millennia, which arose in widely different cultural and political
contexts and that overall are not in any way connected by historical
developments. There is no trajectory that ties the Vikings and the
Waffen SS together, and a juxtaposition of these historical
categories are consequently pointless and vastly problematic.

Furthermore, it does not make sense to juxtapose these the
Vikings and the Waffen SS because they do not belong to the same
historical categories. First of all, a Viking denotes a man with a
certain modus operandi, working in teams, but initially not as a part
of a codified or unified programme. The unification came to some
extent later, when Danish kings like Ivar Boneless or Canute the
Great organised mass pillaging in Britain, but they were not bound
together by an overarching ideology. The Waffen SS, on the other
hand, was a group of people united by a common codified political
programme and vision.

Moreover, the term Viking denotes
people inhabiting a long chronology and a large geographical area.
The traditional dating for the Viking period is 793-1066 and this
period was marked not only by Viking raids but also by Norse
settlement and interaction. Every series of raids and every
large-scale invasion was a response to circumstances that were
specific to its contemporaneity, dependent on concerns, personal
choices and a thousand factors that were impossible to map back then,
and more so in our time. The Waffen SS, however, was comprised of a
group of people from a limited geography and a very short period of
time. Even though each member of Waffen SS had his own personal
reasons for joining, each member was suffused by an ideology that
presented a specific world-view and operated within a nationalistic
construct. In short, the genesis of Waffen SS was driven by a
political purpose at a specific cultural and geographical point in
history. The Vikings, however, were driven by very material concerns,
namely food and riches. In other words, the Vikings and the Waffen SS
are not comparable categories at all, and Cockburn's juxtaposition is
therefore pointless and fruitless.

How to die in the Viking ageIllustration to the 1899 edition of Heimskringla by Christian KrohgCourtesy of heimskringla.no

A
troublesome insistence

The
fundamental problem in Cockburn's piece is, as stated, a matter of
category mistakes. Another, and equally problematic issue, is his
insistence on being topical. Throughout his text, Cockburn suggests
similaritites between the Anglo-Saxon victims of the Vikings and the
victims of the current strife in Iraq and Syria. While the human
trauma of both these historical situations are not to be
underestimated, it makes little sense to juxtapose them. Again, they
grew out of completely different historical circumstances, and to
compare these circumstances will add nothing to our understanding of
either.

Another problem about this insistence on topicality,
is that Cockburn fails to realise that certain terms and concepts
are, because of their historical uniqueness, fraught with subtexts
that can not be transmitted to other historical phenomena. The Waffen
SS committed atrocities directed and subsumed by an imperialist,
anti-semitic, eugenicist, nationalistic agenda, and these atrocities
are still within living memory. The term Waffen SS, therefore, brings
to mind an orchestrated genocide that lacks parallels prior to the
20th
century, and which evokes great personal trauma that creates a lense
which colours any juxtaposition in accordance with these memories. We
are, in other words, coaxed into imagining an 11th-century Norseman
carrying a swastika and killing people in the name of the Third
Reich. This is a manipulation of historical memory which is
ludicrously imprecise. It is also extremely disrespectful towards
those who were the victims of such trauma, since historical phenomena
are jumbled together and assembled in a way which removes them from
their own contemporary contexts. Such a strategy is effective,
especially in light of the adoption of Norse symbols and culture into
Nazism and Neo-Nazism, but it is dishonest.

Having
established the fundamental methodological weaknesses and injustices
committed by Cockburn, it is time to turn to some of the stylistic
incongruities of the piece.

The
chief stylistic incongruity is one perhaps most easily detected by
the professional historian, and I say this without smugness or
arrogance. The chief incongruity is namely the histrionic pathos that
emerges from Cockburn's repetitive insistence on topicality, where
the Viking raids – gruesome and pitiless though they were – are
evocatively but fraudulently presented as the architects and
perpetrators of one of the worst genocides history has ever seen. It
is reminiscent of Christopher Hitchens' terrible highfalutin bathos
whenever he would use the term "medieval" or talk about
religion. In other words, Cockburn's tone of voice in his piece is
incongruous with the sobriety demanded by a careful historical
riposte against revisionism, which he states himself is at the heart
of the matter.

Another incongruity is the succession of points
made by Cockburn towards the end. After describing the death of
Alphege of Canterbury and thus having established the ferocity of the
Vikings, Cockburn then moves on to the St Brice's Day Massacre to
further his point of the barbarity of the Norsemen. This is a very
strange choice, since this was a massacre perpetrated against the
Danes by the Anglo-Saxons. Cockburn is aware of this, however and
comments that this was the case, which only goes to befuddle the
reader, for surely, this does not strengthen his case.

After
this incongruity, Cockburn opens his next paragraph by saying
"[o]verall, the Scandinavians have a lot to apologise for",
and here I will allow myself to be a little facetious, for it sounds
as if he criticises the Norsemen for the inconvenience of dying on
British soil. Of course, this is not what he means and I do
understand his point, but it is so poorly put that it does little
service to his central argument. This makes it the final incongruity
I will touch upon here, for even though every discerning reader
understands what Cockburn is getting at – that the Vikings were
responsible for many atrocities – it would nonetheless, considering
how he jumbles historical elements about, be very surprising if he
were to mean modern-day Scandinavians. In short: Cockburn's
anachronistic juxtaposition of historical elements disrupts
chronology and presents a simplistic view of how complex history
really is, thereby removing all credibility he has in the
matter.

Concluding points

As a person
who, by virtue of a master's degree in history, is a professional
historian, I'm often forced to justify my value to a society
increasingly blind to immaterial gain. I don't find this a difficult
thing to do, providing I'm given time and place to speak, but it is
nonetheless a concern that is constantly at the forefront of my mind.
Consequently, I react very negatively when a person who is not
professionally trained in the art of history presents a narrative
which distorts chronology, ignores fundamental methodological
concerns and is void of any humility and nuance. The heart of the
problem is when complex historical issues are stripped down to a
ludicrous juxtaposition without taking into account historical
context, and then presented in a histrionic manner ill-suited for the
kind of sober reflection needed when aiming to give an accurate
rendition of a historical epoch. Cockburn's piece is a poorly
written, highfalutin text that has little value in a debate on
historical matters. This is very sad, and especially because I agree
with Cockburn's central point: that the atrocities of the Vikings
should be at the core of any presentation of their culture. However,
because the piece is written the way it is, and because he fails to
engage properly with the material, he fails to create a good arena
for a debate. To my mind, this is an excellent example of why we need
professional historians, lest we sacrifice accuracy and complexity
for imprecise simplicity.

tirsdag 1. april 2014

So David
and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with
shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the
Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul’s daughter looked
through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the
Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

The story of the ark of the covenant's
return to Jerusalem is a famous episode in the life of King David,
and it shows the man of royal dignity humbling himself before God and
rejoicing in the Lord's work. In the medieval hagiography this scene
became an important source for hagiographers who wished to contrast
the arrogance of the world - so frequently found in kings who
challenged the so-called liberties of the church. The struggle
between the temporal and the spiritual powers is a common theme in
much of medieval history, and King David was often held up as an
example of good kingship for the admonition of contemporary princes.

One such example comes from the mid-12th century in Aelred of
Rievaulx's Vita Sancti Ædwardi,
the hagiography of Edward the Confessor written in 1163 and prepared
for the saint-king's translation of October 13 that year. This vita
was dedicated to King Henry II and in the dedication Aelred expresses
his hopes that the king might follow the example of St. Edward in the
performance of his office. This was the year before the council of
Clarendon where Thomas Becket and the king had a falling out over the
constitutions which was said to encroach upon the liberties of the
church. The struggle between Henry and the English church was at that
point already long-standing, and it is likely that the Cistercian
hagiographer Aelred - commissioned to write the vita
by Abbot Laurence of Westminster, his kinsman - saw this as an
opportunity to persuade the king off his current path.

In one
anecdote from Aelred's work, Edward the Confessor is explicitly
likened to King David in the healing of the crippled Gillemichel, an
Irishman. This man has been told that he will receive a cure for his
illness if King Edward will carry him on his back all the way to
Westminster Abbey. This task was given to the king by St. Peter
himself, who thus becomes a co-worker of miracles who commission his
favourite on earth, Edward the Confessor, to complete the task. The
king is told about this and agrees to help Gillemichel, thus humbling
himself for the glory of God. The elaborate comparison with David
should be seen in light of King Henry's politics against the church,
and Edward provides for the king a model of emulation, strengthened
by the comparison to the Old Testament exemplar.

The excerpt
is translated by Jane Patricia Freeland and is taken from Aelred
of Rievaulx: The Historical Works,
edited by Marsha L. Dutton, 2005: 163-64.

Meanwhile not a few of those
standing by were laughing. Some teased the king about being fooled by
the poor man, while others interpreted the righteous man's simplicity
and gentleness as foolishness. See there a new David leaping and
dancing; see a new Michal contemptuous and laughing! Yet their view
was sounder who jduged the king happier under such a burden than
under a golden crown. You, Christ Jesus, you yourself were being
carried in the poor man, you who once were clothed as a poor man whom
Martin clothed. But you made that known then by an oracle, this now
by a miracle.

And so as the king moved forward little by
little, burdened by this noble burdn, the tendons that the
longstanding illness had contracted were suddenly extended, the
passag of blood that his stiffened veins had restricted resumed, his
bones became firm, and his withered flesh became warm again. His
joints emerged out of his flesh and his feet were separated from the
buttocks. The knees, which were now flexible and flowing with healthy
blood. The royal clothing was adorned rather than defiled.

They all shout that the sick man has
been healed enough now and that the king should now lay down his
burden because of his filthy sores. The king, mindful of the command
he had received, refused to listen to these siren songs. He entered
the church and before the holy altar he resigned the offering he had
been bearing to God and to blessed Peter.

[B]efore the holy altar he resigned the offering
he had been bearing to God and to blessed Peter.

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.